Confidence
by Darkwood
Summary: Post-Arklay. Pre-RE 2/3. Chris Jill.
1. Chapter 1

**RE: Confidence**

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence." – T.S. Eliot

* * *

**July 27, 1998**

The S.T.A.R.S. barracks were not Jill's favorite place to be, just then. There was a lot of interrogation that was going on, and the four survivors had been quarantined. None of the others seemed to have the same problem that Jill found herself facing.

Barry, through perseverance or pig-headedness, seemed to fall asleep as soon as he stretched out on the thin cots. It wasn't that Jill was longing for her own mattress, or that the cots weren't designed or intended for long term usage. No, that wasn't exactly the problem. There was something else, something beyond the feeling of being once again in middle school passed out on the nurse's couch after getting a black eye.

This was _worse_ than a black eye.

Jill had never previously had a problem being alone. On the contrary, she liked it. It was why even though she'd been dating her boyfriend for years they'd never moved in with one another. (Secretly Jill thought that he was a bit put out that she didn't swoon when he'd offered, and they'd had an actual argument about why she turned him down.) Trapped in the room with the other survivors and Brad… well, Jill felt alone in a different way.

Rebecca, whether she knew it or not, and likely because she didn't know or suspect it, and probably because she was the only other woman in the room, had it the easiest. Jill knew she came off as the strong one, but it didn't mean she was any _more_ ok with what had happened than Rebecca or the two men who had been on the ground. But because she was sullen and withdrawn, they left her alone. Because Rebecca occasionally reacted to the pressure she was feeling with deep breathing or throwing a thumbs up at everyone before turning in on herself in the bunk she was in, the men seemed to easily (and almost unconsciously) take care of her.

The men took turns sitting with _Rebecca_ until she fell asleep.

Jill resented their care of Rebecca.

She tried to resent Rebecca, but something about the girl wouldn't let her do it. When Jill was shaking, Rebecca tried to help.

Reasonably, Jill had to think as she stared up at the underside of the cot on the bunk above the one she was laying in, Rebecca needed more. The younger woman had been out there longer than she had.

No.

That was the bitterness talking.

Putting an arm up, Jill covered her eyes with her forearm. She tried not to think about how Chris was sitting up beside where Rebecca had finally fallen asleep.

And then she stopped trying. She let herself think about it, about the scent of Chris when he walked by her, and the firm hand that helped her up when she needed it. Jill let herself wonder when it was that _Chris_ slept, because she hadn't noticed him do it.

Jill's brain was obviously giving her something else to focus on. A part of her resented that, but only a small part. It was better than the alternative… better than…

The room was quiet, aside from Barry's snores, and the gentle rise and fall of Brad and Rebecca's REM breathing.

The noise was rhythmic, but somehow not soothing. The occasional creak of the metal frames of the bunk cots and the whole dark room aspect was like a bad memory. The windows, thankfully, had blinds on them, but the harsh orange light of the sodium vapors outside the RPD HQ cut through the evening darkness and left marks on the floor and the cots closest them.

The empty cots closest the windows.

None of the survivors were going to sleep near something like that. Jill knew the minute she was let go, the minute she got to go home, she'd be changing things around in her apartment. If it was anything like this…

Jill forced down the shivers and tried humming to herself. Maybe that would work. It had kept her thoughts clear before. Usually over frustration rather than this level of stress, but… something was better than nothing.

Then the rhythmic breathing was overtaken by the creak of one of the cots moving. Probably Brad, Jill reasoned. He shifted a lot in his sleep. To his credit, Brad had opted to remain with the other survivors of the forest rather than continue on normal active duty.

Footsteps, and then there was a weight on her cot. Had she noticed them getting closer? She tensed, immediately, and then she recognized the scent of the person who'd sat on her cot beside her. It was surprising.

"Can't sleep, huh?" Chris's voice was soft in the incomplete darkness.

"You can?" she replied.

"Some, in the afternoons," he said, but didn't sound very convincing. "It's been three days, Jill."

"What, are you watching me now?"

"I've always watched you," Chris said in that same soft voice.

"Ok, not withstanding… whatever. That's unsettling, Chris." She shifted, turning over on one side, putting her back to him.

It gave Chris room to be not touching her. She wanted him to do something like that, to hold her, to… to make it safe for her to sleep the way he seemed able to make it safe for Rebecca. The way that stubbornness made it safe for Barry… the way Brad swigged out of a flask of whiskey that was refilled by the week-night graveyard shift duty officer. Mindy was a good girl, but far too good to understand why she had to bring the pilot a bottle of whiskey every two days.

His weight shifted behind her, and he lay down on the cot with her. The frame pulled tight, but their weight sagged it in the middle. She turned to say something, but Chris reached an arm around her, pulling her into his chest.

And then he held still.

Jill started to grind her teeth, but finally contented herself with relaxing against something that at the very least _smelled_ familiar in a room full of the scent of over-powered industrial cleaners and detergents.

"…this is going to look…"

"Let 'em look," Chris said, settling in. He was warm, and strong, stretched out against her. The effect was drug-like, and almost immediate. Jill's body felt heavy, and Chris adjusted his grip on her, pulling the thin blanket over the two of them. "One of us ought to get some sleep."

"So you _haven't_ been sleeping?" Jill asked, her words coming out a little sleep-slurred, knowing that she might not get the response clearly.

"Some," was all Chris said in response. He shifted so that his nose was against the back of her throat, and adjusted the grip around her middle. His other arm pillowed his head.

They were entirely too close together, but it was exactly what Jill had been quietly begging for, in her own way.

His words didn't sound any more convincing when he said them a second time, but Jill's body was happy to take advantage of the offer of… whatever it was that Chris was offering. She was out like a light before she could come up with a retort to his weak reasoning, and slept straight through the night.

Almost dutifully, she later thought, Chris held her until she slept out. She roused slightly when he was called from the room at the crack of dawn.

She'd gone back to sleep, used to the idea of the higher ups thinking they could catch a flaw in their story by questioning them and holding them almost like prisoners. That was small in her mind, uninteresting. Sleep was better.

An angry part of her, the next day, wondered if Chris thought of it like that, and she nearly bit the head off of her interrogator. She was too angry to eat when the meal was brought in, and she went angrily to her cot.

Jill missed the looks of the other three.

Well, almost. Rebecca was the one who's expression she couldn't ignore. The other woman, the younger woman, seemed like she wanted to confide something in her, to ask a question or…

Jill turned her back on the look from the other woman, pulling her legs up onto the cot and folding them. She needed to think about something else, something that wouldn't make her angry.

But Rebecca wasn't going to give up that easy.

It was a tenacity that Jill had not previously associated with the petite brunette. Soft footsteps brought the younger woman over, and she sat on the cot across from Jill's. "Hey."

Annoyed, Jill looked up at her face, and did her best not to shout at her. Why was she so angry? What was wrong with…?

"Don't be worried about Chris, I'm sure they can't be doing anything too bad to him. Look what we all lived through."

That must be it. That _was_ it, wasn't it? Chris hadn't come back since that morning. "Rebecca…"

"I understand, really. But he's tough." Jill watched Rebecca's face at that, but the young woman had lifted her hands and was holding something on a chain around her neck. Something that looked suspiciously like the dog tags no one had asked her about.

And that was that. Something about Rebecca clicked into place, and all the annoyed jealousy that Jill had felt prior to that moment dissolved. Rebecca wasn't doing anything wrong, she wasn't asking for any help, but for some reason she couldn't quite get over someone.

The door opened to the bunk, and Chris walked in, glaring over his shoulder and grinning like an idiot. Jill glanced at Rebecca, but the woman was looking down still. She turned to the door, and Chris winked at her.

"Well, what are you so keen about?" Barry asked in a gruff voice.

Chris held up a set of brown paper bags that had grease stains on them. "Cheeseburgers."

All of them gathered around the small table, and Jill ignored whatever traces of annoyance were left in her, still curious about what would happen that evening when she couldn't sleep again, and ravenous for the illicit treat that Chris had somehow managed to get for them.

After gorging themselves on the burgers, everyone felt tired. There was no talk of playing cards that evening, or of putting in one of the training videos that would bring light to the world from the small television that sat in one corner. Everyone retired to their cots.

Jill lay in hers, staring up at the cot above, tracing the supports on the steel frame, and listened to the others sleeping. It couldn't have even been ten o'clock. The outside lights weren't on yet, and no one had even turned off the lights in the room.

They flipped off as she was blinking, and Jill tensed, head turning in the direction of the only switch in the room. Then she saw Chris walking back over towards the cot he was sitting on, barefoot and stripped down to his wife beater.

Chris noticed her looking, and a confused look came to his face. He shifted directions, crossing to the cot that Jill was on, and knelt down beside it. "Hey, you ok?"

"You forced me to sleep yesterday, it didn't cure me," Jill said. She didn't let herself acknowledge how nice it felt to be paid such attention to.

"Can I force you again?"

Of course she knew what he meant, but the way the question sounded made Jill's pulse speed up just a little. It was terrible, being locked in with these people and unable to… She wouldn't think about it.

While she was deciding not to think about it, Chris lowered himself to her cot and stretched out beside her. One hand closed on the shoulder closest him and turned her so that her back was, again, against his chest. That same hypnotic feeling of drowsiness gripped Jill with Chris's warmth, and finally the cheeseburgers caught up to her. She let out breath she wasn't aware she was holding. Chris shifted again, sliding his arm up to rest his head on it. This time Jill shifted to rest her temple on it too.

Quietly, to herself, as Chris settled with his nose in her hair, Jill wondered if this would happen again, or if it was some passing fancy of Chris's.

It wasn't.

He did it every night until they were released.


	2. Chapter 2

**RE: Confidence**

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence." – T.S. Eliot

* * *

**August 2, 1998**

By the beginning of August, the interrogation was over. Umbrella was apparently satisfied, and if not the RPD wouldn't let the four of them – joint officers between both organizations – undergo more captivity. Letting go like that was not something that Jill normally associated with the super company. If they were capable of such lengths as what she had seen in Arklay, Jill couldn't believe that they would leave survivors like that.

Something must be wrong.

It was noon when they were released from holding and ordered to return to their residences. Before being allowed to stumble blindly into the sunlit streets of Raccoon City, they were also told to report for duty the following morning.

Numbly, Jill knew she would follow orders. It took a while to convince herself to head back, but she did eventually get into her car and drive to her apartment building. A slow plod took her up the steps to her front door, which was several floors up, and then she was back somewhere that should be the most familiar to her.

The rooms still smelled like her, even after being closed up for over a week or so. Other than the smell, though, the empty rooms that greeted her only caused a heightened sense of anxiety. The rhythmic blinking of the machine that sat across the small hall from the doorway announced that people had called in her absence, but the pulsing light in the otherwise dim apartment was too much like the radio light from her belt… that blasted thing that didn't seem to work right whenever she wanted it to.

Oh well, Jill figured, sucking in a deep breath and exhaling it slowly. No sense focusing on what had happened.

Ok… no sense focusing _any more than she already was._

Pressing the button on the machine, she secured the door behind her, going so far as to drag her heavy hall table in front of it.

The tape on the machine wound to the appropriate point and the message system's automated voice said, "You have twelve unheard messages. Message one. Received on July 20, 11:48 p.m." A short beep disconnected the lifeless recording from the person on the message.

"Look, Jill. I'm sorry about tonight. I know how you get, so I'm not expecting you to call right away, but I am sorry, and I do want to hear from you."

The voice was familiar. The 20th of July?

Oh.

Lawrence. Her boyfriend.

He didn't seem nearly so important anymore. And what was worse, putting the heavy table in front of the door didn't make her feel any better. It didn't get rid of the empty in the apartment, and it didn't soothe the apprehension. It didn't shake the haunted feeling from her. Some things, Jill now had to acknowledge, could take both the door and the table out with a few well-placed swipes. Maybe not fast enough to catch her off guard, but her newfound experience told her how much it would hurt before she stopped it.

And unfortunately, that was the sort of thing she knew she would have to fear before she could respect it properly. The fear didn't stop her reacting to it, but it did hinder her ability to function in relation to other things.

It had been the same that time freshman year of high school when…

No, better not to think about that _too_.

Being alone now, thinking that Umbrella wasn't done or had discarded the S.T.A.R.S. members for some reason made her previous problem worse.

Academically she knew. She knew her apartment wasn't the mansion. The hallways looked nothing alike. The neutral colors here were not the aged, brown and green colors in _those_ _hallways _with the high ceilings. The white trim here was different from the polished wood that was there. Nothing was leaking in her apartment, there were no holes, there was nothing hanging and…

"So when you… when you can, I guess. Call me. Please."

Had he been talking this whole time?

Jill crossed the living room towards the kitchen where her tool drawer was, and walked straight through a thick cobweb. Something dark scuttled in the shadows above her.

That was all it took. Jill's mind supplied the rest. The clicking of talons against the drywall… the dripping echo of water from somewhere unseen… stains of brown that wasn't brown ringed with black and being eaten at by the green of either algae or some sort of fungus…

"Message two. Received on July 22, 6:47 p.m."

Her gun slid readily from its holster and she had fired three shots into the moving darkness before she managed to stop.

"Jill. Are you that mad?"

It was instinctual.

"Come on. Call me."

It was normal.

It was safe.

Her machine beeped. Thankfully she lived on the top floor. Still holding the gun, Jill reached over and turned on the lights in the room.

"Message three. Received on July 24, 3:49 p.m."

Two of the shots had wounded the ceiling just above the crown molding. The third had turned what looked to be a very large spider into a very dirty looking splatter.

Jill wondered if her neighbors would call the cops on her.

She wondered who it would be that responded.

The beep sounded louder, after that, and then a clear voice broke through the almost eerie silence following the gunshots. "Officer Valentine, report immediately to the RPD S.T.A.R.S. office. Bravo Team failed to make contact. Alpha Team is being deployed."

That voice was impossible to mistake. Albert Wesker's strangely low nasal voice would probably be a tone burned into her memory. She even remembered the message.

Alpha team had been divvied up into two groups and given night patrols of the neighborhoods nearest the forest. They were put in charge of tactical units from the RPD. Jill had taken the day to sleep after her shift the night before. They'd not run into anything… really. Just some kid that took off into the trees after they happened upon him with their flashlights. At three thirty, Chris had put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her chair from her desk. It had been curious, but she found out as the two of them headed out of the station, abandoning Joseph to finish the paperwork. Frost had over-slept and been late. He was stuck with the forms.

After sleeping that off, she'd gone to shower before the next shift. She had just entered the living room from the shower and not gotten to the phone in time, but once Wesker's clipped nasal voice came through there hadn't been any hesitation in her actions. Wesker was her CO. It was an order. She'd turned back for her bedroom and changed to leave almost before the message was finished.

She followed his orders.

Now it sent a shiver down her spine just to hear him talk.

"Message four. Received on July 24, 4:12 p.m."

"Jill. Did you get the message?"

Chris's voice was annoyingly comforting. After the others, even interspersed between the automated voice of the machine, his was most familiar. Even the tightness of it from the stress he was obviously feeling about the situation during which he was calling.

Bravo Team.

Chris and Kenneth were in a friendly competition of testosterone. Much like she and Dewey.

There was a pause. "Oh, you just walked in."

It was sweet, really… if she could think of Redfield as sweet… that he had called to check on her. A little background noise, Barry, probably, and then nothing.

"Message five."

The automated voice was cut off by the phone ringing. Jill turned her gun on it, but when it did nothing more than ring, she walked over and stopped the answering machine. Keeping the gun in her hand, she lifted the receiver to her ear. "Go for Valentine," she said. Her voice sounded quiet, even to her. She needed a cigarette, maybe a burger too.

"I've been calling you for almost _two weeks_, Jill. I came by your place and you weren't there, no one at the station would say anything. They won't tell me anything, why didn't you call me back?"

Lawrence.

"I _just_ got home," Jill said. She took the cordless and crossed to the couch, sinking down onto it. She felt tired, again.

"Got home from where? Can't you even pick up a damn phone? I said I was sorry."

"Rence, work has nothing to do with you," she tried. She didn't want to have this discussion. She wanted someone to hold her… to make her feel safe… like Chris had. The thought almost made her drop the phone. She didn't _want_ Chris. She wanted to be rested and refreshed.

"You're right," he said. "It doesn't, but it means more to you than I do. Christ, Jill, how long have we been dating?"

"Three years," Jill replied with a sigh.

"I don't even have a _key_ to your place, and we've been dating three years. Hell, we moved_ here_ together for _your _job, and I see you less – if possible – than before we left Colorado."

"Maybe-"

"Not _maybe_, Jill. It's true."

"Lawrence, I do _not_ want to have this argument right now." Jill emptied the chamber of her sidearm, forcing herself to put the safety back on. The click was loud in the quiet room.

"Was that your gun?"

"Well it wasn't yours," Jill said, tiredness shifting from annoyed to angry. She didn't even really know what that statement was supposed to mean, but she knew that she was about _this_ close to hanging up on him.

"You don't really let me use _my_ gun-"

And at that, Jill did hang up the phone. Like she needed to be reminded of the terrible jokes, or how she hadn't gotten laid in half a month because her boyfriend was unwilling, argumentative, or occasionally _unable_ to participate. She cut the call with a savage stab of her finger against the off button, and she heard the plastic of the handset creak in response.

The phone rang again, and Jill tossed the handset across the room. It didn't stop the ringing, but it made her feel better to hear the thing crunch against whatever it hit.

Jill curled up, pulling her knees against her chest, and wrapped her arms around them, ducking her face into the cushion she'd made with her body. She wanted to drown out the ringing… to…

Eventually the machine picked it up. She listened to herself repeat her phone number, and then the short, curt greeting. The message tone beeped.

"… I thought you'd be home by now… um…"

Chris?

Jill's head lifted and she got up, hunting for the handset. She found the thing in three pieces against the bookshelf in the corner, and cursed, heading for the kitchen phone.

"I'll call back later, then… or just see you tomorrow…"

Scooping the phone from the cradle, Jill hoped he hadn't hung up. "Chris?"

"Jill," Chris's voice sounded surprised, and it echoed, still being recorded by the machine.

She crossed to it, turning it off. "I was in the other room," she lied, hoping it sounded like a good enough excuse.

"Sorry for calling… it's late…"

"It's six o'clock, Chris," Jill said, glancing at the microwave to confirm her internal sense of the hour.

"Yeah. Um. I'm… I need a drink."

"Well, I think you're of age to do that by yourself, unless I missed something?"

"Claire hates it when I drink alone. Humor me?"

A negative reply was on her lips. Jill didn't need a drink. She needed… A piece of the plaster fell on her shoulder and she jumped, gun back in her hand in an instant. Ok, she reasoned, maybe she did need a drink, and she could trust Chris, afterall.

"You don't have to, uh… I'll just see you in the-"

"How much of a drink?"

Chris's pause drew out.

What was he thinking about that reply? An old, familiar apprehension sank into Jill's gut as he considered her question. It had started back in 1990, or maybe a little before. The ROTC program was probably the first time… she was rough and tumble enough to swing with the boys, but there was something that kept things from being normal between her and them.

Almost as if she wasn't _allowed_ to out drink them, or to win at arm wrestling… back then, in high school, she knew what it was, but since then it hadn't gotten much better. Somehow the service seemed to instill a sense of _little boy_ in the men that stuck with it.

"Well it depends on how you want to look in front of our new CO," Chris said. There seemed to be a hint of a smile in his voice, a bit of devilment that she hadn't heard before.

Jill felt her own lips curving in a smile, and then she chuckled. That was a surprise to her as much as him.

"So, that established," Chris began, obviously grinning. That was weird. Since February, it was almost like she'd never seen Chris smile at her… or… no. She'd seen him smile at her on occasion, usually when they were on a training mission, or like he had in Arklay. Nothing this personal. He was always polite and professional unless they had their guns out. "Let's plan on neither of us driving home tonight. I'll get a cab and meet you at Mickey's?"

"You asked me," Jill said, contemplating the living room. "Does that mean you're buying?"

Chris snorted at that. "Hey, I've heard stories of you drinking people under the table… we'll split?"

"Sure. See you in twenty."


	3. Chapter 3

**RE: Confidence**

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence." – T.S. Eliot

**

* * *

August 2, 1998**

Even though he had invited her, Chris felt awkward. Mickey's was _his_ bar in a way. He used to go there with Kenneth, Enrico, and Frost… when he could stand Frost. It was a usual hang out of almost the whole S.T.A.R.S. unit, on both sides… But as soon as he got there, he realized that they'd never brought Jill along. Or at least he'd never seen her there with any of them. Once or twice with some guy… but… Not with the co-workers.

One of the things he often disagreed with Frost about… their new female team members. Frost thought it would be better if Jill went back to the Air Force, 'where she belonged'. Chris didn't like that, and Kenneth and Enrico had to pull the two of them apart once when Frost was mouthing off while they were drunk.

Lucky for Frost, Chris hit softer when he was drunk.

Enrico thought he and Frost were like siblings. Chris, he pointed out whenever asked (often by Kenneth), was the older of the two.

The only S.T.A.R.S. member who knew the reason behind the big-brother tendency was Barry. Chris was… disinclined to mention his baby sister to the rest of them. Not Kenneth because that would just be _weird_ – Sullivan was a nice guy, but not the type to pass hitting on someone cute; and not Enrico because… well. If Enrico got curious about Chris's little sister, in a way it would be worse than Frost doing it. Enrico was an ok guy, just way too old for her. Not that he bet Enrico was liable to go for someone that young (he didn't seem inclined toward Rebecca, after all), but Chris was an over-protective big brother.

Least of all Frost because he'd have to clean a room with him if he ever said things about Claire the way he did about other women in rooms and in his acquaintance.

It was like the man was missing some primary, normal brain function. Jill was a worthwhile co-worker. She was good with her hands, she was strong for her size, and she was a pretty damn crack shot.

Of course, she did have the drawback of being hot. Not that it was a drawback. No, it was an asset, but it didn't help Frost that he had exactly two brain cells about women, and neither of them were liable to attract one like Jill. To prove the point, and to keep from getting into another fight with him, which would keep Enrico from teasing him about how much he doted on his little brother, Chris was polite to Jill, but waited for her to make friends, if she wanted.

It worked ok in the office, but she'd proved herself the first month on the field, and Chris could be a bit too chummy out there, when the mission was going well. She probably thought he had multiple personalities or something.

But now with Frost gone… and no Enrico to tease him about how much of a gentleman he was…

Chris needed a damn drink. And he needed it where he would feel at least a little safe. But then he'd gotten to the bar first, and didn't quite know what to do except start a tab. So he had, ordering his usual. The bar tender gave him a look. "Yeah, Moses, shut up."

"Don't call me Moses," Mo replied, narrowing his eyes at Chris as he placed the shot glass in front of him and poured the whiskey. "And I'll give you whatever look I want. It's not even after happy hour, Chris."

Smoothing his own brow, Chris knew that his bartender friend had a good point. Usually Chris at least waited until after dinner to go knock back the Jack, but… freedom had already taken him to Emmy's, and he didn't want to go be inside anymore.

"What am I gonna tell Claire, you drinkin' alone at dinner?"

"Tell her I'm not, though you keep your damn hands off my sister," Chris said, lifting the glass. "She's underage."

"It was _your_ barbecue," Mo replied with a smirk.

"She was _seventeen_, prick," Chris replied, narrowing his eyes.

"She didn't _look_ seventeen," Mo replied.

"Do any of "them" "look" seventeen?" Chris replied, his narrowed eyes turning into a glare easily. He liked Mo when Mo had nothing to do with women. If he'd known it was Mo's night on he might have suggested a different bar because…

Mo's eyes shifted to the door as it opened, and Chris knew from the look on the man's face that Jill had entered the bar. "Now now," Mo said with a grin.

"Keep it to yourself," Chris ground out.

Jill crossed to where he was sitting, patting him on the arm, and tapped the glass. "I'll have one of those," she said, sliding onto the stool next to his.

"Are you sure you want whiskey, sweetheart?"

She chuckled and nodded. Mo relented, getting her a glass. "Been here long?"

That nearly made Mo drop the glass. Chris chuckled. "No, I just got here." Mo narrowed his eyes across the bar, setting the glass down.

"Well aren't I lucky then?" Jill took the shot glass and lifted it to the two of them before knocking it back in a gulp.

"Moses Jones, Jill Valentine. She's…" Chris considered that for a moment, "she's my partner from work."

Jill lifted her brows at that, one finger against her lower lip to catch some of the whiskey that had escaped the shot glass rim.

Mo refilled her glass and hovered for a few moments before another of the bar patrons, a much younger one with a lower cut shirt than Jill's man-cut t-shirt, leaned up for his attention. Chris chuckled at that, shaking his head.

"Partner?" Jill asked when they were alone, voice pitched to be below the conversation and the television screens that were showing the MSU game.

Chris turned his eyes to hers, and was caught. It wasn't hard to have that happen, but he wasn't used to it nearly enough to be comfortable. Another reason he tried to be polite but distant with her. Especially on a day that he felt like he was going to jump out of his skin _anyway_. Distance wouldn't work now, though, and he knew it. He needed someone to be familiar, needed someone to drink and not ask why he was drinking…

Barry was MIA, having taken the family 'camping'. Brad was drinking alone these days.

Jill was all there was left.

He moved a hand from his glass and nudged her hand towards hers a little. "It's easier than explaining the whole of the S.T.A.R.S. deployment strategy. Besides… after…" Chris trailed off, glancing around the bar. "After last week, I guess… that's just how I feel about it."

She was quiet at that, and then she knocked the whole glass back.

If he hadn't known Jill could drink several of the other S.T.A.R.S. members stupid and then some, he might have had a stupid, Mo-like comment. Instead he just smiled.

It wasn't that Jill never went out drinking with them, just that usually it was office drinking. It sounded worse than it was. He, Forrest and Dewey had a monthly meeting after target practice. The meeting involved alcohol, and the reigning King of the Meeting was Chris. The losers had to supply the next months' alcohol, and in the running, of the fourteen meetings they had, Chris had bought only three times.

He knew Jill could out-drink at least Forrest, because when she'd been in the office after one of his triumphant returns, working on paperwork or something, he'd invited her to join them.

Thank god Frost wasn't with them.

It was a bit too friendly, perhaps, for Frost to see him like. Chris was feeling the camaraderie of the field, though, and so he'd extended the invitation. Jill's response was an amused grin, and then she and Chris had proceeded to drink Forrest and Dewey into oblivion.

That evening had started rumors. Both about the two of them, the improved alcohol tolerance of Alpha Team, and whether it was a prerequisite for working so closely with Wesker that you could handle your liquor in a serious way.

It was strange to think that he and Jill were so similar.

"Hope that's ok."

Jill grinned, tipping her head to one side to look at him. "Chris, everyone's entitled to their feelings."

"Right," Chris said, lifting his whiskey to his lips.

Her hand snaked out quickly, and she basically _poured_ the whiskey into his mouth by smacking the underside of his glass as he took the sip. Chris did his best not to choke on it, but he didn't manage to taste any of it as it burned its way down his throat.

Glaring, he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Oh come on, I know you can take it. Neither of us are driving," she reminded him. Then she grinned. "Partner."

"We're going to get written up tomorrow, aren't we?" Chris asked.

Jill's expression shifted, and Chris thought he knew why. She probably needed the drink as much as he did. "If we get _that_ drunk, remind me to thank you."

* * *

**August 3, 1998  
**_10:15 am ...  
........................ Monday_

They got _more_ than that drunk. Chris hadn't bothered to slow down much, but by the time happy hour had passed farther towards last call, he knew they needed to eat something and sleep some off. Jill seemed to be of the sleeping persuasion. His 'partner' got chummy when drunk, the same way he got chummy on missions… maybe worse. It had started with her arm against his as they leaned on the bar, talking in hushed tones, and had moved on to her arm around his neck.

Mo gave Chris a look about that, and Chris glared.

He also hefted her up against him as the taxi pulled up outside, keeping an arm around her waist.

They made it to Jill's apartment, and he got her inside before the rush of all that whiskey caught up with him like it had caught up to her. He'd had every intention of putting her to bed, getting a bagel to force her to choke down, and heading to his apartment. But the minute he got the door open, the room started to shift. Whether this was her plan or not, it fell out pretty simple. Jill slammed the door behind them, and they stumbled to her room and fell into bed.

Chris couldn't say he'd ever been that close to someone that hot… at least while being _that drunk_. They fell asleep fully clothed, guns still in holsters.

In the morning, he woke to her cursing loudly, the sensation of his gun digging painfully into his back, and a warm feeling all over. "GODDAMMIT!"

The shout hurt Chris's head, just like the light that was coming in through the blinds, and he started to move, to get the window, to cover his head up, when he realized that he couldn't.

Oh he could move. He just didn't want to.

The hangover was disorienting, of course, but the way they were laying was more powerfully interesting than the force of his disorientation. Sometime in the night they'd shifted from their sprawl. Chris was lying against Jill, and she had her legs parted so he was flat against her. Her arms wrapped around him.

His brain was just catching up to that, but his body had been where his brain was going for at least an hour. Pleasant warmth, a soft body cradling him… it was just the right conditions for an instant hard on.

Jill's arms hugged him like there was nothing the world the matter with having an adult man clutched to her. Like he was a comfort item…

Strange, Chris hadn't known that whiskey turned him into a teddy bear.

"Fuck, Redfield!" Jill cursed again, shoving at him. Her grip had been strong, her shove was stronger.

She would have to use _that_ word. Chris dragged himself off her, checking to be sure they were still dressed – somehow both glad and annoyed that they were – and flopped back against the other pillow. Being dressed didn't stop his body from reacting to the warmth he'd just been pressed against. Had she noticed that-?

"I warned you we'd get reprimanded today," he said in a low voice, trying not to aggravate the throbbing in his head that she seemed not to care about at all.

Beside him, Jill giggled. Chris's head threatened to split open at the noise. More than just the hangover… Jill Valentine _did not_ giggle. "…you're not a pod person, are you?"

"No," she replied, settling down, one arm over her eyes to block the sun. "I'm not… but damn. I haven't been _that_ drunk since graduation."

"Warned you," Chris reminded her, pulling the pillow over his head. It helped the sun problem, but not the other one. The pillow smelled like Jill. Hell, the whole bed… the whole _room_ smelled like Jill. His head pounded, and he swallowed against the dry feeling in his throat, the way it felt like the room shifted when his eyes were closed like they were.

He tried not to think about Jill naked.

Jill made an amused noise that was somewhat muffled by the pillow. Chris tried very hard _not_ to think about waking up with her beneath him. Hangovers were supposed to _kill_ morning wood, weren't they?

"Water time, ain't it, boyscout?" Jill asked.

"Yeah," Chris grumbled, stubbornly tightening his grip on the pillow over his head. If she wasn't going to bring it up… neither was he. A strong tug on the pillow yanked it from his hands, and the sunlight assaulted Chris. "Dammit!"

Her hand covered his eyes, and the smell of her hit him stronger than before. Like the bed… the pillow… and the apartment were all some stale version of the way she really smelled.

"No suffocating yourself. I like this pillow."

His assessment of the scent thing wasn't out of the question. Neither of them had been home in almost a week.

"I'm going to move my hand. Keep your eyes closed."

He nodded, a little dumb. He was afraid to nod too much, or to move too much. It might clue her in to… what she'd done.

The bed shifted, Jill fell against it beside him.

They lay there in silence for a while. Chris didn't know what she was thinking about. He knew the light against his eyelids was less painful, and he knew that his body was attuned to the fact that she was barely six inches from him.

She let out a sigh, and Chris cut himself off from either asking anything or rolling on top of her.

_This is your partner!_ his mind snapped at him.

She sighed again.

"Jill?" he asked gently.

"Thanks," she said, swallowing. "I really needed that."


End file.
